


In A World Of Monsters

by loves_books



Category: The A-Team (2010), The A-Team - All Media Types
Genre: Halloween Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 20:04:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21258893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: Hannibal doesn’t understand Halloween, he never has. Why dress up as monsters when the world is already full of them? Monsters exist everywhere, all around, and they certainly don’t come out for only one night every year.





	In A World Of Monsters

Hannibal doesn’t understand Halloween, he never has. Why dress up as monsters when the world is already full of them? Monsters exist everywhere, all around, and they certainly don’t come out for only one night every year.

And why do people enjoy being scared? Surely the world is terrifying enough with going that extra mile, just in search of a cheap thrill.

His perspective is, admittedly, more than a little skewed. He sees the very worst of humanity, his team all do. They see war and murder and terrorism and rape. They see heartlessness and cruelty on a scale unimaginable to most normal people, and Hannibal is glad that’s the case, that most people will never know the truth of what humankind can do.

Still, the question remains: why celebrate Halloween? Even as a kid, Hannibal doesn’t really remember enjoying it much, but then his family didn’t really do much beyond carving pumpkins together, and they’d lived too far out of town for trick-or-treating.

Hannibal would really rather ignore it, and when they’re out in the field he can do just that. October 31st is just another day and night when he and his boys are trudging through a desert or deep in a gunfight or pulling a careful scam on a warlord or rescuing a hundred desperate refugees.

It’s not like Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter. When they’re on deployment for those days, the team tries to do something special; Face will usually have planned ahead, because that’s what he does, and they’ll all make a special point of pausing to enjoy each other’s company, even if only for a few snatched moments around a campfire. They are family, after all, and those occasions are a time to be with the ones you love.

Not Halloween, though.

Halloween back in the States is something Hannibal can genuinely say he hates, even if his boys do love it with a fierce passion he simply doesn’t understand.

Murdock is all about the decorations and the dressing up, of course. This year he’s chosen a relatively tame Ghostbusters costumer, complete with ‘working’ proton pack, which is a vast improvement on last year’s Incredible Hulk. He’d used the wrong sort of green body paint which had refused to wash off, even by the time they’d returned to Afghanistan two weeks later. To his credit, Murdock had borne the teasing well and stayed worryingly in character for the entire mission.

BA loves greeting the trick-or-treaters, of course, which means Hannibal has to put up with a constant stream of knocks on his door as the team camp out at his house when they’re home on leave in the States. BA dresses up too, with a little more class than Murdock – Thor last year, the Godfather this year, and Hannibal would have to say the braces and waistcoat suit him surprisingly well.

Even beyond the knocks on his door and the ridiculous decorations Murdock has strewn all over his porch, trick-or-treating is something Hannibal just finds annoying. It’s basically begging, and it’s also expensive because of course his boys expect him to buy all the candy because it’s his house. The morning after, Murdock and Face will eat all the leftovers – BA isn’t a big sugar fan – and they will bounce off the walls all day until they crash hard in the evening, leaving Hannibal wishing he could bang their heads together.

As for Face, well. Hannibal is genuinely at a loss to understand why Face doesn’t share his feelings about the whole night. Face has seen the worst of humanity too, and experienced it in a far more personal manner. He’s never spoken honestly about his life before he joined the Army, but he’s dropped little hints, usually when he’s been wrapped up safely in Hannibal’s arms with the blankets drawn up high and all the bedroom lights turned off.

An orphan, that much they do know, with little love in his early life, though the priests and nuns at his care home did the best they could. Homeless for a time, beaten for begging. Bullied for his looks as well as for being an orphan. Abused physically and mentally, even raped, Hannibal strongly suspects.

So why on earth does Face enjoy Halloween, when Face must know deep in his heart, just as Hannibal does, that monsters are real? Giving them a cartoony face and eating sugar-coated candy doesn’t change that fact.

For Face, though, Halloween seems to be the perfect excuse to watch the scary movies he avoids during the rest of the year. He’s not really a fan of dressing up, thank goodness, and he won’t tag along to the huge Halloween party thrown back on the base, but he will happily watch films that Hannibal knows will give him nightmares for weeks.

And so here they are yet again. Another year, another stupid Halloween night, and another silly movie. The last of the trick-or-treaters have gone home to get high on sugar, the candles in the carved pumpkins out on the deck have burned down to nothing, and the Ghostbuster and the Godfather have gone to get drunk with the other soldiers, leaving Hannibal curled up on the sofa with Face lying practically on top of him. Their legs are twined together, and Face is watching a film that Hannibal can’t even remember the title of, something about a kid who knows a rollercoaster is going to crash and kill everyone.

It’s not scary in the slightest. It’s predictable and dull, at least in Hannibal’s eyes, though he’ll sit there without protest and simply enjoy having Face’s warm, muscular body in his arms.

Admittedly, there’s not much that scares Hannibal Smith. He isn’t bothered by clowns or ventriloquists’ dummies, nor snakes or spiders, something that comes in handy when Face is caught off-guard by something with eight legs and shrieks like a five year old. You can’t be a Ranger and be scared of heights or flying – BA being the obvious exception to that rule – and you certainly can’t be afraid of being hurt or even of dying.

So a badly-done CGI rollercoaster crash doesn’t bother him, though Face flinches in his arms again as one of the teenagers is beheaded and fake blood sprays everywhere on the screen. He soothes his boy and watches Face while Face watches the silly-not-scary movie.

Hannibal’s heart flutters in his chest and his throat feels tight as he looks at the man he loves. This is the only thing that scares Hannibal, something he admitted to himself years ago but will never say out loud to another living soul.

He loves this man so much it scares the life out of him.

He’s scared that one day he will make a mistake that gets Face killed. He’s supposed to be the man with the plan, the one with all the answers, but he knows he’s only human in a world of monsters.

What will he do if he ever loses Face?

He runs one hand tenderly up his boy’s long spine, and Face arches up into his touch instinctively even as he buries his nose in Hannibal’s neck, apparently shielding his eyes from another supposedly-gory death on screen.

“That’s just nasty,” he mumbles, and Hannibal can’t help but chuckle even as he presses a gentle kiss to the crown of Face’s head, inhaling the familiar scent of his strawberry-scented shampoo.

“Then why do you want to watch it?” he asks, sliding his free hand onto Face’s hip to pull him a few inches closer. “What’s the appeal?”

Face lifts his head enough to rest his chin on Hannibal’s right pectoral, blue eyes shining and his cheeks slightly flushed. “It’s Halloween, boss,” he says incredulously, as if it’s the most obvious thing in all the world.

“I know. But that doesn’t mean you have to watch a horror film.” Hannibal takes a breath, then continues, “It’s only going to give you nightmares, you never watch them the rest of the year, and why on earth did you choose this one in particular when you’re going on a stag-do to Disneyland next weekend?”

That turned out to be more of rant than Hannibal intended, and he opens his mouth again to take it back, at least in part, when Face suddenly smiles, biting his lower lip as his blush grows a little deeper, pausing the movie with a click of the remote.

“Honestly?” Face blinks rapidly, the flickering lights from the screen painting his skin a strange rainbow. “I thought you knew.”

But Hannibal is lost, and for a moment he doesn’t quite know what to say. Has he missed something obvious? “Knew what, baby?” he asks hesitantly, and his boy takes a deep breath.

“Don’t judge me, okay?” Face says eventually, his voice quiet and his eyes bright.

“When have I ever judged you?”

“Never, I know.” And Face sighs softly, though his gaze never falters. “Honestly? The reason I watch these films is because… well, they kind of turn me on.”

He shifts in Hannibal’s arms just enough so that, okay, yes, Hannibal can tell that Face is indeed enjoying his choice of evening entertainment. And thinking back quickly over previous Halloween nights spent at home like this, with any number of equally awful horror films with fake blood and guts and ghosts and ghouls, there has indeed been spectacular sex each and every time after the credits roll.

Face seems to be waiting, not quite nervous but certainly more exposed emotionally than he usually allows himself to be, and Hannibal leans forward to kiss him firmly, a lingering and reassuring press of lips. There is certainly no need for judgement; Hannibal has kinks of his own, kinks that Face has gladly embraced.

Hannibal reaches down and, taking the remote control from Face’s loose grasp, turns the film back on with a flourish. “I think we should watch the rest of the movie, in that case,” he says, letting his voice drop to a deep growl that he knows Face finds erotic, and sure enough Face’s pupils dilate just a fraction more, his breathing picking up speed. “Got to find out if Death does indeed get them all in the end, right?”

“I knew you were paying attention.” Face’s voice is barely more than a breath as he settles back down into Hannibal’s embrace, the hardness at his groin resting right over Hannibal’s own growing arousal.

So maybe Halloween itself is silly. Maybe fancy dress and trick-or-treat and things-that-go-bump-in-the-night are a waste of time, and maybe horror films are predictable and formulaic. Maybe monsters are real and maybe Hannibal does wish the whole night was just over already.

But when the credits do finally roll and Face lunges up to kiss Hannibal as if the world really is about to end, well, maybe he can accept that it isn’t such a pointless night after all.

Hannibal finds himself hoping that they’ll be home for Halloween next year too.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Halloween challenge at the Yahoo H/F group. Also inspired by a list of Halloween prompts I found online (I didn't save the website unfortunately) and also oddly inspired by an episode of The Big Bang Theory.


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